The red light district is moving into the green belt as prostitutes are taking their punters to the South Oxfordshire borders away from prying police.

The red light district is moving into the green belt as prostitutes are taking their punters to the South Oxfordshire borders away from prying police.

Street workers who pick up customers in the Oxford Road area of West Reading, are insisting they do the business elsewhere.

It has been reported prostitutes are heading north to places such as Caversham in order to avoid Thames Valley Police’s crackdown on prostitution in Oxford Road.

Jo Daley, who works to reduce crime and disorder in partnership with Reading Borough Council and Thames Valley Police, said people knew officers were targeting kerb crawlers and prostitutes in Oxford Road and were put off going there by this.

She said: “Prostitution is moving out of where it traditionally was and punters are now taken from Oxford Road.”

Elaborating on this, she said although there was not an active red light district north of the Thames, women were increasingly parking up there to ply their trade in exchange for cash.

Chief Inspector Jim Weems, who is also deputy local policing area commander for Reading, told the Post the women were putting themselves at risk by heading somewhere so isolated.

Chf Insp Weems said: “We would urge people against going to the quiet countryside.

“The women are the victims in this.

“For some people prostitution is a career decision but for most people it is a way to fund some kind of habit. It’s hard to get out of.”

He said men also worked as prostitutes although not necessarily in Reading. “I’d be naïve to think it didn’t happen in Berkshire though,” he said.

The same police and council briefing last Thursday revealed prostitutes in Reading were coming in from elsewhere in the country because our town has great transport links.

That is according to Miss Daley and Chf Insp Weems.

Miss Daley said: “We are seeing an increase in prostitution.

“What we are finding is there a recent influx of women coming into Reading.

“It’s too early for us to say why the women are coming into Reading although it does have good transport links.”

She suggested working girls – many from Slough – could just jump off at Reading West station and they were in the town’s red-light district which she admitted was “well known”.